#10 Stoic practice: act the opposite

This series of articles is my feedback on A Handbook for New Stoics, a book on the practice of Stoicism, by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez. For one year, every week, I will experience the Stoic practices proposed by the handbook and I will share with you my weekly review. This will provide you with an overview of the different Stoic exercises and the benefits (or not) they can offer you.

💬 A practice presented by Seneca

How much better to follow a straight course and attain a goal where the words “pleasant” and “honorable” have the same meaning! This end will be possible for us if we understand that there are two classes of objects that either attract us or repel us. We are attracted by such things as riches, pleasures, beauty, ambition, and other such coaxing and pleasing objects; we are repelled by toil, death, pain, disgrace, or lives of greater frugality. We ought therefore to train ourselves so that we may avoid a fear of the one or a desire for the other. Let us fight in the opposite fashion: Let us retreat from the ibjects that allure, and rouse ourselves to meet the objects that attack. — Seneca, Letters to Luciulius, 123. 12–13

🔥 How to apply this practice?

First, identify things that attract or repel us and that we’d like to change. Then, prepare…